Bishop Ingham, however, said the vote won’t make anyone happy. “A majority of people voted in favour. I think everyone’s a loser. Traditional Christians can’t take comfort in the vote and those who want to move on are held back by a small number of bishops. I think we need to look at the composition of the house of bishops and whether it properly reflects the Anglican Church of Canada.” There is a predominance of bishops from rural areas while the Canadian church is predominantly an urban church, he said.

“It was a vote to continue the (worldwide Anglican) Communion conversation and it was a vote of support for those bishops who said we will face difficulty in our dioceses. It puts us in a position of being asked to wait,” said Bishop John Privett of Kootenay.

However, observer Gordon Youngman, of the diocese of British Columbia, said the decision means “the Anglican Church of Canada is effectively paralyzed for the next three years.”

Paralyzed? Paralyzed?? Holy cow. Even if you by the claim that SSB are proper for the Church to do (which I wholeheartedly disagree with), the Church is not paralyzed. How can you say that if the Church is forbidden to do something not authorized by scripture anyway that it is paralyzed? And the conservatives are blasted for focusing too much on the gay issue…

“I think we need to look at the composition of the house of bishops and whether it properly reflects the Anglican Church of Canada.” - Bp. Ingham. Methinks Ingham doesn’t understand the difference between the house of Bishops and the Canadian House of Commons.

With regards to SSBs, this situation is no different from last week to the present. They are sanctioned. They are not, however, disallowed, and they will continue. Yes, it was decided they are not “core (in the sense of credal)”, a technicality whose subtleties the revisionistas will disregard and take it as an official sanctioning.

With regards to the situation in Canada, they have chosen the leftiest of the lefties for archbishop. For the Canadian brethren, my condolences. Michael Ingham is wandering around in sackcloth today, but it is party time tonight for him and his ilk.

Bishop Ingham, however, said the vote won’t make anyone happy. “A majority of people voted in favour. I think everyone’s a loser. Traditional Christians can’t take comfort in the vote and those who want to move on are held back by a small number of bishops. I think we need to look at the composition of the house of bishops and whether it properly reflects the Anglican Church of Canada.” There is a predominance of bishops from rural areas while the Canadian church is predominantly an urban church, he said.

So +Ingham sets the stage for the creation of many new urban mini-dioceses and possibly the forcible consolidation of rural conservative dioceses to reverse the voting balance in their HOB. If the pesky unenlightened conservative dioceses insist on electing bishops that do not properly represent the whole of the Anglican Church of Canuckistan, we’ll just have to depose them and install more prophetic, enlightened bishops for them!

The upshot is, that Canada willtreat homosexual marriage as a done deal, given the vote, and so Canada has fallen prey to the Lavender liturgy. I wish Kendall would take the time to speak about this in the larger context. Does the synod’s action mean anything to anybody except a few Anglican’s?
Will the attitudes of the non-Anglican world care one way or another? Are we - that is, the traditionalists - standing in front of a tank, Tien An Men style,except that everyone is cheering for the tank?

And while I’m about it, can someome tell me, “Why Now?” Where did this massive homophile thrust come from and why is it succeeding so steadily in the western world? Why does America now encourage what in the past it held to be utterly repellent? BUt why homosexuality? Why not the insane or fat people? Is this the result of 40 years of “Do your own thing”? Larry

I don’t understand why this blog pays so little attention to the rest of the world. It’s as if we are permitted to talk only to ourselves. Does anyone have any idea why Kendal won’t respond to what are, I submit, reasonable and important questions?

Is not the definition of a hypocrite one who urges a certain action on somebody else while refusing it for themselves?

Well, we see Michael Ingham here whining that the House of Bishops in Canada are not properly representative of the full population of Anglicans in Canada, and that there should be a change of representation.

Back 6-8 years ago, when the liberals were ramping up their campaign to get SSB’s approved in New Westminster, the conservatives expressed concerns to Ingham. Seems like the larger parishes in the New West diocese were the conservative ones, and the formula used to calculate the number of delegates to Synod was massively unfair. The small, liberal parishes were vastly over-represented and the large, conservative parishes were vastly under-represented. In fact, everyone knew that if there was fair representation, Michael Ingham would never have been elected bishop and SSB’s would never have been approved. However, Ingham had NO TIME for the conservatives back then and he had NO TIME for fair representation in his diocese because he had his agenda.

And now he was the audacity to complain about unfair representation. What’s that defnition of hypocrite again?

And while I’m about it, can someome tell me, “Why Now?” Where did this massive homophile thrust come from and why is it succeeding so steadily in the western world? Why does America now encourage what in the past it held to be utterly repellent? BUt why homosexuality? Why not the insane or fat people? Is this the result of 40 years of “Do your own thing”?

I can’t give you a specific answer on “why now?” But I have noticed that it seems that certain issues just spring into national prominence at certain times… maybe society is “ready” to face the issue then, maybe there’s some subtle confluence of factors at work, maybe it’s just happenstance.

Why did the Civil Rights movement become a major issue when it did, and not fifty years earlier, or fifty years later, or never? Why did Women’s Suffrage become the hot topic when it did, and not some other time?

So I can’t answer your “why now?” for the human sexuality issue… but for whatever reason, it’s time has come and it is confronting our society now and we have to deal with it one way or another. It’s not just the Anglican arena either, of course—most other mainline denominations are struggling with it, and in the secular world you can make an argument that it was a decisive factor in the last presidential election. Willy-nilly, it is one of the issues of the day here in the West.

<blockquote>And while I’m about it, can someome tell me, “Why Now?” Where did this massive homophile thrust come from and why is it succeeding so steadily in the western world? Why does America now encourage what in the past it held to be utterly repellent? BUt why homosexuality? Why not the insane or fat people? Is this the result of 40 years of “Do your own thing”? <blockquote>

Larry, you ask some good questions. Here are some of my thoughts.

The disaster started with the rise of a large post-WWII demographic that, through sheer numbers, has managed to deconstruct the institutions. TEC is a paradigm of this Gramscian march.

This demographic now holds the levers of secular political power in the West, and they rightly perceive that ethnic pride and sectarianism threaten the very existence of the secular state. As the Western democracies hurtle toward ultimate corruption and bankruptcy, their citizens begin to shift their loyalties away from the secular state to those institutions that predated it: patria, race, creed, etc. Homosexuals by contrast represent the Ideal Citizen: a vocal and well-off minority utterly dependent on the secular state for validation.

The Left, now that it has completed its long march through the institutions, has quietly tiptoed away from the causes of ethnic pride and anti-imperialist secession to espouse instead its own modern-day Tower of Babel: the borderless social democracy. Homosexuals and in particular, transsexuals, are held up as the penultimate expression of diversity in this new secular order. Multiculturalism is going to backfire very badly on the Left and I think they know it, even as they naively import ever more anti-liberal elements into the West in a desperate attempt to save their beloved welfare entitlements. They hope to convert the new arrivals to their worldview to hold the secular order together and offer up the conveniently non-sectarian homosexual as their posterchild. It will not work, as any photo of an Episcopal gathering makes clear: TEC is a ghetto of aging white Baby Boomers—more and more of whom will be women—and their homosexual friends.

It seems to me a correlation exists between economic prosperity and acceptance of homosexual behavior. That’s based on some limited historical reading, and anyone who wants to borrow the idea for graduate research is welcome to it. I’ll bet you’d get statistical significance, but good luck getting it past a dissertation committee!

If I am correct, then Mr. Morse’s question “why now” is answered. Since World War II, the cultural west - the U.S., Canada, England, Western Europe - have enjoyed remarkable sustained economic security, leaving folks free to pursue a variety of worldly pursuits. Children move from economic assets to economic liabilities (which would, in a complex manner, relate to the devotion to abortion), and childlessness moves from a curse to a blessing. At best, children become lifestyle choices - ornaments to validate ME - and I think we see social tendencies to that effect.

I am describing effects, not a conscious conspiracy. And I repeat: immigrants, particularly pan-Hispanic nationalists and pious Hindus and Muslims, do not share the secular elite’s goals, so they are being jettisoned in favor of conveniently non-sectarian homosexuals. The transsexual is even better in this hierarchy, as his/her self-mutilation represents the ultimate gnostic expression.

But I also want to point out the analysis of Paul in Romans. Paul says it started when “Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural…” Now while many think this refers to lesbianism, many others suggest it is heterosexual anal intercourse (for birth control and preservation of virginity). Brooten got a MacArthur for her scholarship on this. You might think this interpretation benefits lesbians, and it does in that it allows them to say that the Bible doesn’t mention lesbians.

However, it is very in keeping with the chain of events in the 20th century that took us to this point. Trace the trajectory of the advocacy of birth control and abortion and we find we reach the abandonment of the natural understanding of intercourse. And so why shouldn’t it be about erotic gratification?

I find your tone offensive (‘Lavender liturgy’) - can’t you use some more neutral vocabulary?

Why now? Because it’s been a terrible injustice for centuries and a confluence of circumstances has convinced most people in the West of the injustice. This confluence includes: realisation that gay people are no threat; a generally much more tolerant social atmosphere; prominent gay people in popular culture (lots of pop singers and artists, film stars like Rock Hudson); pretty good documentation showing the constancy of homosexuality in pretty well all cultures (including penguins) and therefore in quite a strong sense its naturalness; the disproportionate numbers of gay people who are attracted to various kinds of religious life ... I could go on, but that’s enough.

John S. Your right that the gay population has permiated our society, (well almost, with 3% of the population) but as far as being NO threat, you obviously have NOT been on the wrong side of a group of gays, and seen and heard their rhetoric. Because it is accepted by a society does not mean is should be accepted in a Church. I could care less who says they are gay and what agenda they promote, just don’t tell me that Scripture condons it or that Christianity must accept it as normal. It is serial sin, and needs to be repented of and not repeated. There is nowhere in the ALL the Scriptures that condons this deviant behavior, but always consistently condemns it along with incest and multiple partnering. It is TEC’s bowing to the big money and power of the Gay and Lesbian Lobby, and the whims of society, and not to the Scriptures, that is the reason TEC is in the shape it is in today. If the Church does not set moral standards for Society, Society will set the moral standards for the Church….and it has done that.

No threat indeed! Have you looked at the statistics of the Episcopal church. The church is very much threatened. Look at how inclusivity and moral relativism has killed the church in Europe. Gene Robinson himself has called to risk the institution itself to advance the homosexual cause. I, as a member of the Episcopal church since birth, should not feel threatened with burgeoning deficits and increasing church closures in my diocese (whose population is exploding)?

Bp Ingham, as I recall from his pronouncements over the last 5 or 6 years, is quite the master of this kind of statistical deception (I know he’s not the only one, but here he is on display for the whole world to see) - ...those who want to move on are held back by a small number of bishops.
Shame on him.
The vote was not given to two bishops to decide. The vote was decided by TWENTY-ONE bishops! That would be a small number in TECusa; in the ACoC that is enough to be declared a majority - not just two stuck-in-the-tundra, yahoo, “rural” bishops. The reality is that the Canadian House of Bishops is divided pretty much right down the middle on this issue. And all the ramifications…..

#17: The argument that homosexuals pose no threat. We have heard this often from the homophile agenda. It simply does not match the truth.
First, and still, the primary vector for AIDS in the US is the homosexual subculture. Even after all the warnings and the deaths, the vast majority of new cases are from homosexuals and needle users. This is true everywhere in the US; this is true even here in Maine. Shall we say that the needle users are no threat? The primary vector for AIDS is a real, continuing, and apparently, unalterable threat, for if it were not, homosexuals would have learned a lesson and would no longer be the primary vector

Second they have quite voluntarily torn the Anglican church apart and will continue to do so until they get what they want. To fail to call this an enormous threat is to blindfold yourself.

Third, if they get their way, marriage as a core social institution will be destroyed, since granting true marriage to homosexuals will destroy the standards by which marriage is judged. Moreover, to advance this agenda, the Mass. Supremes have patently violated the First Amendment.
This last business, the destruction of a standard , is but one part of the worst of the homosexual threat, namely, that this agenda, successfully prosecuted, will substantially serve to destroy the setting of standards - serve to establish the absence of standards as the only standard - and this damage is already VERY severe. (See that silly woman 3ho think she can be a Muslim and a Christain at the same time; See the ex-Gov of NJ entering a seminary. We could pile evidence up here like bodies after the plague).
You argument is simply false, for the evidence is stack wide and deep against it. I could go on, but that’s enough. Larry

#21 Larry, I applaud your efforts! That takes courage, and I truly praise that. Jesus never said our job would be easy, but He DID say to spread His truth. You are doing that here. I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said here. March onward, my brother in Christ!

Maryland Brian tells about a homosexualist advocate in their Lutheran church who declared that if they could not get the church to accept their demands they would “burn the church down”. Or tear it to the ground or something like that. I’d say that’s a threat. The irony, of course, lies in the fact that TEC has pretty much given the homosexualists what they want and they are tearing it apart anyway.

First, and still, the primary vector for AIDS in the US is the homosexual subculture. Even after all the warnings and the deaths, the vast majority of new cases are from homosexuals and needle users. This is true everywhere in the US; this is true even here in Maine.

According to the CDC, this isn’t quite true. Looking at the table of “Estimated # of HIV/AIDS Cases, in 2005” by “Transmission Category,” Male-to-male sexual contact is admittedly the largest single category (about half the total cases), but the next largest category is heterosexual contact (about 32%). Injection drugs are a distant third, at about 14%.

You do have a point about the “primary” vector for HIV/AIDS transmission, but terms like “vast majority” which aren’t supported by the data tend to weaken it.

Of course, what they are thinking is that it is not homosexuality per se, but multiple sexual partners. They want to create cultural support for a sexually active homosexual lifestyle without promiscuity.

And to some extent they recognize that homosexual promiscuity is a compulsive disorder. But they blame it on social stigma. So they want to eliminate the social stigma, hoping this will reduce what they perceive as the underlying cause of the promiscuity. And based on this way of thinking, they feel justified in destroying institutions that continue to articulate the stigma. Because the way they see it, those instituions are promoting ideas that lead to promiscuity, thus AIDS, and also depression and suicide.
Kind of like an alcoholic blaming the family’s disapproval of the drinking as the cause of the drinking. “If only they would stop complaining about it, I could be a social drinker, I’m sure.”

#24: Homosexuals and needle users are at least 64% and may be close to 70% percent/ Let us use the 64%. This is the majority I spoke of. Is 2/3’s not vast? I rather thought it was but I will accept overwhelming majority. Surely 2/3+ is such a majority? LM

But by singling out “homosexuals and needle users” you imply that they are the top two categories, which is false. Male-to-male sexual contact and heterosexual contact are the top two, by a substantial margin—over 80%, taken together. Yet you leave heterosexual contact out of your summary. Why?

Having studied the thing both geographically and historically, I feel able to state categorically that large-scale same-sex perversion is an epiphenomenon of extreme affluence. So Sodom, C5 BC Athens, port cities with nice climates like ancient Corinth, or modern San Francisco and Vancouver. Too much money, too much leisure and too much freedom will always lead unredeemed human nature to find straight sex boring, kinky sex exciting.

Why now particularly? The Sixties made females more available to men; this was found to be very painful, so the women withdrew from the men; the men then withdrew from the women in the time-honoured way. But the women pay I believe more dearly all along the line. That, and the exploitation of all the weak, including children and the poor, is Satan’s aim.

The profound irony is that with equal education and material prosperity combined, there never has been a time so favourable to Christian marriage as now in stable societies.

#34
Coming from a farm background, when “live births” are the difference betweeen poverty and affluence (e.g. Gen 30 for this whole meme described in some detail), I could not agree with you more. That goes for the human and flock element of the scene.

#36
For a farmer, they are pretty conclusive. For a non farmer, they might be irrelevant. Given that Scripture is filled with agrarian common sense, you might bend your mind about the analogs presented. But if you think that scripture must be re contextualized, then you might avoid the original meanings.
So precisely why was the shepherd concerned about the sheep?